In his masterwork, The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells a story about a Zek, a prisoner in the Gulag, who finds an ant in the bottom of his teacup. The Zek notices that the ant is trying to crawl out, so the Zek gently pushes the ant back down to the bottom. The ant tries to crawl out again, and again the Zek pushes him down. After the third try, the Zek begins to count. One hundred eighty-two times the ant tries to crawl out. One hundred eighty-two times the Zek carefully pushes him back down. There is no Try #183. The ant simply huddles at the bottom, occasionally wandering around, but never again does it try to escape. The Zek can go away for a while and come back to find the ant still there. It has given up any attempt to be free.

...

"So the American ant can stop pushing himself, or herself, down to the bottom of the teacup?" I asked.

"Exactly," Durk answered. "Too many Americans are trapped behind a Berlin Wall of their own making."